Q: In a recent Roadshow column, a reader described a story from traffic court in which a defendant claimed another driver backed into his car at an intersection. No one believed him, including the judge, and the entire courtroom burst out in laughter when he told his story. I am here to tell you that I find the defendant’s story highly plausible because the exact same thing happened to me last May 19.

Richard Haas

San Jose

A: Oh, come on. You’re one example. There can’t be many more, can there?

Q: This has happened to me twice. Many years ago I was sitting behind a car on Meridian Avenue when a driver ahead of me wanted to back up and pull into the left-turn lane. He jammed it into reverse and really whacked me. I know he was distracted by the two women in his car yakking at him, but really! His trunk was badly dented, his bumper hanging by a thread, and the license plate was dangling. My 1975 Pontiac Bonneville was about the size of a Navy destroyer and there was a scratch on the front about three inches long. Then about three years ago, a woman in a Mazda SUV tried to make a turn at the light in front of me on Branham Lane. She smacked into me and got stuck with the repair to the front end of my car. I bet she looks next time. It does happen more often than you think.

Jill Swanson

San Jose

A: I’m starting to think that way.

Q: Having endured for years the misinformation and nonsense propagated in your column, the recent comments you published about ridiculous traffic court stories topped them all. Not possible that one motorist backed into another? Well, it has happened to me, not once but twice. “… I was backed into! It does happen. “… A very similar incident happened to my wife, more years ago than I care to count. She also was backed into at a stoplight. With much trepidation, that evening I called the home of the woman who backed into my beloved. Her husband answered the phone, and I told him that our wives had been involved in a minor auto accident earlier that day. My worries were immediately put to rest when he immediately responded: “Oh my God, what did she do now?” I’m sure glad we weren’t in front of your unbelieving traffic commissioner on this one. “… When I was 17 (I am now 50) I was stopped behind a dump truck when that driver suddenly started backing up. He didn’t stop until after he had scrunched the front end of my Mom’s 1966 Thunderbird. “… During my years of driving I have been hit twice by drivers who stopped too far into an intersection and backed into my vehicle.

A: Now I am a believer. And if that traffic judge is reading this, I’m sure he is, too. Let’s go back to Richard Haas to finish his story.

Q: I was sitting at the light on El Camino Real at Castro Street in Mountain View, minding my own business, the second car in line at the light. The light turned green and suddenly the car in front of me became huge in my windshield as the driver gunned the motor and came shooting backward toward my car, jolting me pretty hard. I sat there stunned for a few moments, wondering what on Earth had just happened, and then followed the driver who struck me into the parking lot to compare insurance information.

She was an older lady who was so shaken and distraught by plowing into my front end that she was shaking and in tears. There was no damage to my car except for a broken license plate holder, and I told the lady that everything was OK and not to worry about the accident. She kept repeating that she was “so stupid” and “I don’t know how it happened” and she was “so sorry.” She was crying and shaking and begging for forgiveness. I wound up hugging her, patting her on the back and consoling her for 20 minutes. Each time I told her that there was no harm done and no one was hurt, she just cried harder and wouldn’t let me leave without first pressing $80 into my hands. I stuck around long enough to make sure she was OK to drive away in her shaken state. It was very surreal.

Richard Haas

A: Richard’s story took another turn when he says another driver who saw the crash pulled into the parking lot to make sure no one was hurt. When he saw Richard hugging the lady who smacked into his car, he said: “Wow, you’re the nicest accident victim I’ve ever seen!”

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.